Bertrum (2011) highlights the political origins of welfare reform but little research explores how political partisanship may affect current implementation of welfare policies. Drawing on a quantitative case study of four states from 1960 to 2018, I analyze caseload data and compare it with the political affiliation of the controlling party in the state legislature. Results show caseloads decrease when Democrats are in office but single mothers are economically worse off. When considering the party in office over time, the focus is on state legislature. The State legislature can impact welfare reform more so than the office of the state governor because it determines the criteria for welfare eligibility. Those criteria are not decided on the federal level per TANF reform, which aimed to increase state level control over the welfare policies. This result is highly surprising and highlights the need for change in welfare policies to remove decades of discrimination towards Black, single mothers.
